Isn’t that the worst feeling when one of
your friends disappoints you? Or even
worse, when they betray you? It’s like you’re stabbed right through the
heart. Well, words are the same,
although hopefully it doesn’t hurt quite so much. False cognates, more colloquially known as
“false friends,” are words in two languages that look the same but don’t have
the same meaning. They can really deceive you, those little tricksters.

Some words in
English and Spanish are spelled exactly the same way and have the same meaning,
take chocolate--the only difference is the pronunciation. Animal, legal, taxi,
video and sofa are some more examples.
Other words look very similar and have the same meaning like
apartment-apartamento, contact-contacto, elegant-elegante, dialogue-diálogo,
band-banda and many more. However, those
aren’t the crux

of our problem. What
we’re going to focus on today are words that look the same but have totally
different meanings—the false cognates or infamous “false friends.” Here are 15
of the most common false friend mistakes for Spanish speakers.

Spanish
term

English
definition

English
false friend

Spanish
translation

Actual

Current

Actual

Real, existente

Asistir

Attend

Assist

ayudar

Carpeta

Folder

Carpet

alfombra

Constipación

A cold, stuffed up

Constipation

Estreñimiento

Decepción

Disappointment

Deception

Engaño

Éxito

Success

Exit

Salida

Embarazado

Pregnant

Embarassed

Avergonzada

Fábrica

Factory

Fabric

Tela, tejido

Idioma

Language

Idiom

Modismo, frase hecha

Noticia

News

Notice

Aviso/Notar

Remover

Stir

Remove

Quitar, sacar

Reunión

Meeting

Reunion

Reencuentro/Reunión

Sensible

Sensitive

Sensible

Sensato

Sopa

Soup

Soap

Jabón

Soportar

To put up with

Support

Apoyar

Here
are some examples of these false friends in use-hopefully they help you
remember the difference.

1. I eat carrot soup everyday but I wash
myself with soap.

2. I stuffed my papers in my folder and put
it down on the carpet.

3. Actually, I’m really interested in
current events.

4. I was so embarrassed that I asked that a
woman if she were pregnant-it turns out she was just fat!

5. What a beautiful fabric! Yes, it was
made in a factory.

Homework!

Now it’s your turn. Watch out because these are difficult. Each
sentence contains a false friend error. Try to spot the false friend and
replace it with the correct word in English.

In
today’s article I will write a few recommendations about colloquial
abbreviations in emails, a well as the appropriate use of greetings and saying
farewell. In the first place, I explain how to write a formal email to a person
or a company that is unknown to us. Then I enumerate the cases in which one can
use less formal writing, paying attention to abbreviations that can only appear
in the latter type of correspondence.

My
first advice is that if you are writing an email to a person or a company for
the first time, it will be better for you to use formal expressions, which you
will be able to substitute for more familiar ones when you have already exchanged
some mails and you get to know your partner better. Hence, I highly recommend
always starting the email saying ‘Dear Mr’ or ‘Dear Mgrs.’; another option is
to begin your email saying ‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’. Both alternatives are correct,
but if you don’t know the treatment that you should use with the person you are
addressing, you can write his/her name after the word ‘Dear’ (for instance,
‘Dear Thomas Smith’), though people tend to consider this option more informal.
After the person’s status, it is convenient to write ‘if I may’ between
parenthesis, as an act of deference to whom you are writing to.

You
should finish your email writing at the bottom ‘Regards’ or ‘Kind regards’. You
can say ‘Best regards’, too, but in this case you are implying that you empathise
in some way with the people at the other side of your screen. Apart from the
alternatives that I have just mentioned, there are two more expressions that
are appropriate in this context: first, if you started the email saying ‘Dear
Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’, you can finish it saying ‘Yours faithfully’; second, if
you began with ‘Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms’, you can use ‘Yours sincerely’. It is
important to note that, after all the expressions that I have pointed out in
this paragraph, you must write your full name in the following line to sing the
email.

Either
if you know the person to whom you are addressing your email, or if you have
already exchanged some word with him/her/them (though you needn’t be in close
terms with each other), there are some alternatives to make your communication
less formal. On the one hand, you can start saying ‘Hello’ and the name of the
person, but you will only say ‘Hi’ if you are really close to each other. There
is also an expression that is halfway between both alternatives: ‘Greetings’,
which is regarded as more neutral and is rarely used. When it is time to say
farewell, you can choose between different options: ‘All the very best’ implies
affection towards the person you are addressing, whereas ‘Best’ is more
neutral, and ‘Cheers’ is regarded as the less formal of all, which is the
reason for its use mainly in emails exchanged between friends. In the following
line you can write your first name, or only your initials in really colloquial
correspondence.

It
is precisely in the latter kind of emails that one can use colloquial abbreviations
whose meaning has been previously agreed by common use, such as ‘asap’ (‘as
soon as possible’), brb (‘be right back’), btw (‘by the way’), fyi (‘for your
information’), idk (‘I don’t know’), lol (‘lots of laughs’), np (‘no problem’),
omg (‘oh my God’), etc.

To
sum up, the first decision one needs to make when writing an email is what
his/her relation is to the person to which it is addressed. Once we have
clarified this question, we only need to use the appropriate tone and to
remember the main expressions and their correspondence, in order to use them
right and to cause a good impression in the addressee, whoever he/she might be.

English isn't easy! We count the grains in bread but not the bread itself. We count loaves of bread and slices of bread, but we don't count bread! Why not? How can you tell? How can you keep all these countables and uncountables straight!? No need to fret, just keep reading and I'll explain it bit by bit (by the way, you can count bits of bread and even crumbs, but not the bread itself!).

So, the main difference between these two types of nouns is that countables you can count, and uncountables, you can't. It's not quite as simple as all that but let's think. You have some water. Can you count it? No! You can count bottles of water or glasses of water but the water itself can’t be counted. One of the most common uncountable nouns is liquids. Water, milk, soda and juice are all uncountable. Likewise, solids with small parts or that can be melted into a liquid are also uncountable. For example, rice, pasta and ice cream are all uncountable. You might argue that you could count each grain of rice or each piece of spaghetti but who really wants to do that! Butter, wax, grass, popcorn and cheese also fall into this category. Remember though, we do find ways to count these items such as scoops (of ice cream), pieces (of cheese), kernels (of popcorn), blades (of grass) and more.

In addition to food and drink, concepts are usually uncountable. It’s logical! How can you count music or psychology or art? Most things that are abstract are uncountable and all uncountable nouns are treated in the singular. For example, “this music is horrendous” or “love always triumphs.” Likewise, whenever we modify an uncountable noun, we must use an appropriate modifier. “Some, any, a little and much” all modify these nouns (many and a few do NOT). The last rule is that we don’t use the indefinite article (a or an) with uncountable nouns but the definite article (the) is ok. So, let’s look at some examples that put these rules into practice:

I’ve got some rice.Do you have any milk?Music is my passion.Their lawn doesn’t have much grass.

BUT!

I’ve got so many grains of rice.Do you have many glasses of milk?The music that she plays is lovely.There are a few blades of grass on their lawn.

In conclusion, liquids, solids that melt, and small part solids are uncountable. Abstract concepts like love and happiness, news and information, money, power and electricity are also uncountable. We use uncountable modifiers, no indefinite article and they are treated in the singular. However, most uncountables can be counted by specifying how we will count them. Try some exercises yourself!

I’ve got so (much/
many) water.He thinks that (a/ø) money is the root of all evil.The news (is/are) very depressing.They have (many/a little) popcorn.Do you have (any/many) butter?